written Wednesday, May 30 2007 10:48Profile#1
No. Have you read 'Survivor's Guide to the Apocalypse'?

--------------------When asked about his voicing of Unicron, Orson Welles is quoted as saying, "Unicron was the perfect character for me to play. I find it easy to relate to him. We're both the size of a planet and we both can eat said planet."Posts: 1918 |
Registered: Sunday, October 13 2002 07:00

written Wednesday, May 30 2007 11:09Profile#2
Nalyd read the "Special Christian Believer Edition" of "The Survivor's Guide to the Apocalypse" for kicks. Nalyd wonders how stupid the author must have felt come New Years Eve, 2000.

written Wednesday, May 30 2007 11:36Profile#3
I have read 'Survivor's Guide to the Apocalypse'. Quite funny.

The reason for my post was that "The Simplest Path" is really quite an interesting manual(?) on how to free your mind from the destructive influence of Memes. I thought it might make for interesting discussion.

In someways, the book is kind of full of crap. Alternatively, you may find it turns you into Jesus or Buddha, or some such spiritual guru. I am now a Jesus like figure, except I don't believe in God (well the Christian one anyway - on the other hand, I guess a Christian "God" is conceivable) and that I am pretty much the same as I always was. Was there really a "Jesus" anyway?

I guess that explains why I can turn water into wine. Anybody have some water?

--------------------You are asleep.

Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.

written Wednesday, May 30 2007 15:17Profile#4
(censored due to somehow being against the CoC)

Disclaimer: I apologize for the content you don't get to see and you having read this disclaimer(and that next post of mine). We here at the Church of James the Deity would also like to apologize to any women who saw and were offended by the recently censored post. It was intended to show the horribleness of men while at the same time teaching the glorification of women. At the Church of James the Deity, our goal is to make women happy and not be offensive to them, because without women, there would be entirely too many Star Trek fans and Card Game Obsessed Geeks.

[ Wednesday, May 30, 2007 18:23: Message edited by: Bandit Keith ]

--------------------When asked about his voicing of Unicron, Orson Welles is quoted as saying, "Unicron was the perfect character for me to play. I find it easy to relate to him. We're both the size of a planet and we both can eat said planet."Posts: 1918 |
Registered: Sunday, October 13 2002 07:00

written Wednesday, May 30 2007 18:06Profile#6
Consider it edited... And thus I say 'boo for pro-male sexism' and 'yay for female rights'

[ Wednesday, May 30, 2007 18:21: Message edited by: Bandit Keith ]

--------------------When asked about his voicing of Unicron, Orson Welles is quoted as saying, "Unicron was the perfect character for me to play. I find it easy to relate to him. We're both the size of a planet and we both can eat said planet."Posts: 1918 |
Registered: Sunday, October 13 2002 07:00

written Wednesday, May 30 2007 18:21ProfileHomepage#7
I think it was the poking. TM got banned for posting something similar (though it was a lot more... well, it's really hard to describe without breaking the CoC :) ).

--------------------When asked about his voicing of Unicron, Orson Welles is quoted as saying, "Unicron was the perfect character for me to play. I find it easy to relate to him. We're both the size of a planet and we both can eat said planet."Posts: 1918 |
Registered: Sunday, October 13 2002 07:00

...our goal is to make women happy and not be offensive to them, because without women, there would be entirely too many Star Trek fans and Card Game Obsessed Geeks.

*is highly offended and slightly saddened*

Women can be Star Trek fans too, and there can never be enough Card Game Obsessed Geeks. :(

:P

--------------------"Even the worst Terror from Hell can be transformed to a testimony from Heaven!" - Rev. David Wood 6\23\05

"Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can." - John WesleyPosts: 1001 |
Registered: Tuesday, August 19 2003 07:00

written Wednesday, May 30 2007 19:09Profile#10
Oh for the love of... Er, I mean. We at the Church of James the Deity would like to apologize for that highly offensive statement and are planning on adjusting the statement. Unfortunately, due to male stupidity, the needed corrections will not be scheduled for completion for at least a week.

EDIT: J, PM

[ Wednesday, May 30, 2007 19:10: Message edited by: Bandit Keith ]

--------------------When asked about his voicing of Unicron, Orson Welles is quoted as saying, "Unicron was the perfect character for me to play. I find it easy to relate to him. We're both the size of a planet and we both can eat said planet."Posts: 1918 |
Registered: Sunday, October 13 2002 07:00

written Thursday, May 31 2007 04:35Profile#13
I am sad to see that this topic has been so derailed.

Admittedly, it is at least in part my fault. My initial post was not direct enough.

I am really interested in discussing memes and how they dominate our lives.

Memes are a concept originally introduced by "The Selfish Gene" by Dawkins.

"The Simplest Path" takes the idea of Memes to a new level. The premise is that to achieve a state of self actualization, enlightenment, or whatever you want to call it, we have to escape from the viral memes that infect our minds.

written Thursday, May 31 2007 05:12Profile#15
Somehow, "freeing one's self from the influence of viral memes" causes echoes of buddhism to ring in my head. And I can't stop thinking that both religion and war are, in part, viral memes...

--------------------I have nothing more to do in this world, so I can go & pester the inhabitants of the next one with a pure concscience.Posts: 617 |
Registered: Tuesday, April 13 2004 07:00

quote: Is not the idea of freeing oneself and others from viral memes itself a viral meme?

Yes. However, the meme in this case would be more accurately described freeing oneself from all memes .

Your next question may be: "Then isn't just as dangerous a meme?"

Initially it is just another infectious meme, however, if this meme is played out to its natural end, won't it ultimately eliminate itself. You have to start somewhere.

Words lend themselves to the formation of memes since they are imprecise and have both connotation and denotation. The realization that each individual must ultimately free himself from this meme too, is contemplated.

--------------------You are asleep.

Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.

written Thursday, May 31 2007 06:59Profile#18
Thank you, Lenar. I humbly accept this most prestigious award.

Back to the memes thing. Having taken college Psychology & high school Sociology and watched countless programs on the History Channel, I am clearly (not) an expert in the field of human studies and behavioral sciences. Now, I have never liked self-reinforcing concepts(such as imaginary numbers), which are concepts where you try to follow the explanation of something and said explanation is essentially a big loop with no valid outside inputs. Through thorough (fake) scientific analysis, I have come to the conclusion that memes are just that, a self-reinforcing concept with no outside support. There simply is no practical way to prove or disprove the validity of the theory.

--------------------When asked about his voicing of Unicron, Orson Welles is quoted as saying, "Unicron was the perfect character for me to play. I find it easy to relate to him. We're both the size of a planet and we both can eat said planet."Posts: 1918 |
Registered: Sunday, October 13 2002 07:00

written Thursday, May 31 2007 08:17Profile#20
Viral memes are the new engrams, eh? Well, memes shmemes. I'll just try to purge my mind of bad ideas, as everyone since before Socrates has advised. That ought to take care of all the viral memes that need taking care of.

written Thursday, May 31 2007 13:33Profile#24
As anyone who's dealt with the subject before knows, Imaginary Numbers are essentially numbers that don't and can't exist. In the case of College Algebra(where I first encountered the concept), they are the 'square root of negative one' which according to standard math rules isn't possible. Now, the math for imaginary numbers, in addition to not accomplishing anything, is based off of equations that ultimately loop around back to the beginning with no viable input other than its own equations. To put it in more simple terms it's like looking up a word in a dictionary and getting another word for the definition. Then when you look up the other word it leads you back to the original word. Hence the term 'self-reinforcing loop'.

--------------------When asked about his voicing of Unicron, Orson Welles is quoted as saying, "Unicron was the perfect character for me to play. I find it easy to relate to him. We're both the size of a planet and we both can eat said planet."Posts: 1918 |
Registered: Sunday, October 13 2002 07:00